Rabbit Heart: Raise It Up
by Okami No Yume
Summary: Sansa asks herself, when surrounded by enemies, what is she? A wolf or a rabbit? One-shot, first foray into the GoT 'verse.


**Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)**

A Game of Thrones Fanfiction

**Obligatory Disclaimer: **I do not own Game of Thrones. It belongs to HBO and George R. R. Martin. This is based off the TV show, for the most part. Inspired by the Florence + And the Machine song.

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_Here I am a rabbit hearted girl  
Frozen in the headlights  
It seems I´ve made the final sacrifice_

_We raise it up, this offering_

_We raise it up _

Sansa had always been a good girl. She had always remembered her courtesies and acted like a lady, just like her mother and unlike her sister.

She had done everything right. Everything that had ever been expected of her.

So, she wondered to herself with despair, how did it all go so terribly wrong?

She had come to King's Landing full of such dreams-of beautiful jewelry and fine dresses and someday marrying Prince Joffrey. She would have been a good and just queen, beloved by her subjects, and she would have given her once beloved Joffrey strong, healthy sons with shining golden hair.

All of those dreams had been torn asunder when she saw the executioner's sword separate her father's head from his body.

She could scarcely sleep because it seemed like every time she closed her eyes, the terrible scene was permanently, brutally seared into her memory.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and she would have wept, if she had any more tears left in her.

She yearned for home, yearned for everything to go back to the way it was before-she missed the North more than she ever imagined she would have. She missed the sounds, and smells, and voices of her family, her brother's playing, Septa Mordane's gentle scoldings and admonitions and praise for her needlework and Old Nan's stories. She even missed fighting and squabbling with Arya. She would have given anything for this to be nothing more than an awful nightmare and the next time she awoke she would be back home in Winterfell, and all would be as it once was, and her family would be whole once again.

But no matter how much she wished it, the cold, harsh reality was that her father was dead, her brother was at war, and her sister was missing-no one knew what had become of her. She wondered what had become of Arya, and every night prayed to the Seven for her safety, wherever she was. She hoped desperately that her little sister had managed to escape the clutches of the Lannisters, unlike her, who felt as helpless and weak as a fawn in a den full of lions.

She cursed herself for being such a blind fool-for not listening to her father and returning home to Winterfell, for not seeing Joffrey for the monster that he was instead of the storybook prince that she had once believed he was-real princes were good, kind, noble, gentle, honorable and merciful.

Joffrey, she now saw, was the opposite of all of those things.

Wearily, she rose from her bed and approached her full length mirror, wincing at the fresh bruises that covered her body. She looked awful, with her normally shiny red hair a mess, and her face red from crying and a cut on her lip from one of Joffrey's ordered beatings the last time she had spoken out of turn. There was also one particularly awful bruise just under her right breast and over her ribs that made breathing painful.

He had once said that it wasn't fitting that a king should strike his wife, so he had his knights do it for him. Sansa lamented that the knights in the stories would have been galled at the thought of being commanded to raise their hand to a woman. But then, Joffrey's attack dogs could hardly be considered true knights.

She took a shuddering breath and stood up straighter. She regretted that she had not been able to end Joffrey that day he forced her to look upon the severed head of her father and Septa Mordane. She knew that she would have been tried and executed for such an act, but she could scarcely bring herself to care, since her family had already been driven to rack and ruin. She would have thought of it as a heroic sacrifice, and she would have gone to her death with dignity and grace.

She cursed the Hound for stopping her, for allowing the opportunity for her vengeance to slip through her fingers, and yet she knew that he wished to spare her from the same cruel fate as Ned Stark. He had stopped her out of some sort of pity or perhaps even kindness, and she could not help but note the irony that someone who was so hideously disfigured had perhaps more nobility and honor than all the Gold Cloaks combined.

As she gazed at her reflection, Sansa felt something inside her harden, and her blue eyes became as cold and pitiless as a winter storm. She was tired of it. Tired of the beatings, the victimization, Joffrey's bullying, but most of all, she was tired of feeling helpless. The Dire Wolf was the sigil of her house, and when a wolf was cornered, they didn't cower in the face of their enemies. They fought tooth and nail for their survival, and that's exactly what Arya had always done, what Robb was doing right now in the North, and what she would do. She would stand and fight, and she vowed that somehow Joffrey would be brought down. She fantasized about plunging a dagger into his chest and watching the blood drain from his body. She was no helpless rabbit. She was a wolf of the north, and Stark blood flowed through her as much as Tully.

Or perhaps Robb would be the one to bring an end to Joffrey's reign, and there would be victory for her and her family. Winter was coming for Joffrey and the rest of the Lannisters. They just didn't realize it yet.

_I must become a lion hearted girl  
Ready for a fight  
Before I make the final sacrifice_

_We raise it up, this offering_

_We raise it up_

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**A/N:** Yeah, I know, this has been done before, but it wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to get this little plot bunny out. I'll probably write some more for this fandom in the future. Anyways, reviews are appreciated!


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